Kinetic

A lot of our hope hinges on the RiVerSpeAK Collective. Maybe it’s because the group’s first handmade zine — one that revolved around the theme of nests — sold out in 24 hours when it went on sale earlier this year (we missed the boat). We’ve never heard of something like that happening here until now. The collective — a group of artists, writers, performers and creatives — is throwing another big soiree this fall. This one — which is themed around kinetic energy and motion — will feature another handmade zine of art and writing, and will take place during the fall Visual Arts Tour. Sure, RiVerSpeAK is still young. But we’re pretty sure with this show, they’re gonna skip crawling and break into a run here pretty quickly. Oct. 1-2 | In the former Lorinda Knight Gallery space, Friday 5-9 pm, Saturday 10 am – 5 pm. — LEAH SOTTILE

Visual Arts

Archie Bray at Kolva-Sullivan

The search for the holy grail of ceramics may just lead to Helena, Mont., of all places. That’s where the Archie Bray Foundation been providing artist residences to some of the best and the brightest working in clay for more than 50 years. People like Kelly Garrett Rathbone and Kevin Snipes, who will give a workshop Oct. 2 at the Clay Connection. And artists like three recent exhibitors at the prestigious Bellevue Arts Museum “Clay Throwdown!” (a play on words, throwing? As in throwing on the wheel? Pottery humor): Gwendolyn Yoppolo, Nathan Craven, and Sean Erwin, who makes laugh-out-loud clay jack-in-the-boxes. In fact, all the recent Archie Bray residents will be showcased at Kolva-Sullivan’s ninth annual exhibition, which always has us seeing clay in new and cosmic ways. Oct. 1-31 | Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, Free, Opening Reception Oct. 1 5 pm-9 pm — CARRIE SCOZZARO

Film

SpIFF & MAC: Wednesday Night at the Museum

Don’t worry – Wednesday Night at the Museum isn’t the latest sequel to the Night at the Museum vehicles starring Ben Stiller. For the benefit of all the art geeks and snobs out there, it’s a lot more cerebral than that.

Wednesday Night at the Museum is new series of events at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture featuring guest speakers, artists and films on as many Wednesday nights as possible. Every second Wednesday is devoted to a film sponsored by the Spokane International Film Festival.

The films for September and October are both documentaries about artists: Jack Smith and Destruction of Atlantis and Painters Painting: The New York Art Scene: 1940-1970. But having grown out of last year’s Humanities Series at the Magic Lantern, some later films will cover various humanities-related topics. Oct. 6 - Dec. 28 | The Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, $5; 6:30 pm. — CAREY JACKSON

Theater

South Pacific

South Pacific is more than 60 years old. It’s the sort of prettified, break-out-into-song musical that Grandma hummed along with, right?

Not the way Bartlett Sher sees it. Sher — the longtime artistic director at Seattle’s Intiman Theater who directed the two-year Broadway run of the show and now the touring version — has envisioned a visceral struggle played for high stakes.

The men and the women are kept separate, see, but they’re in this tropical paradise. And, lacking our hindsight, no one knows who’s gonna win the war — or how bloody it’s going to be. People might get killed. (And do.) There’s uncontainable horniness effervescing all over the island, they’re all far from home, and they don’t want to hear any criticism — because whatever these expatriate French plantation owners and Polynesian folks may stand for, the nurses and Seabees know that the values of heartland America are simply better.

Well, guess what? We’re still fighting wars in faraway lands. We still haven’t conquered racism. And South Pacific, in Sher’s un-idealized vision, packs surprising relevance: “It’s as if a vintage photograph had been restored not with fuzzy, hand-colored prettiness but with you-are-there clarity,” wrote Ben Brantley in the New York Times.

This is a Golden Era musical brought back to life with an expansive beach of a set, period-accurate costumes and — here’s the selling point — a full 24-piece orchestra. Sher aims to get Grandma humming — and crying — along while the overture is still playing. As for the rest of your family, the war and racism themes will give South Pacific a contemporary tinge, and Bali Ha’i is calling. Oct. 6-9 | INB Center, $30-$65, Wed-Thurs 7:30 pm, Fri 8 pm, Sat 2 pm and 8 pm – MICHAEL BOWEN

Opera

Met Opera's Das Reinghold

The Met is launching a new Ring cycle, and you don’t have to be in the Big Apple to see it. Do you realize how cool that is? A world-class event, seen with all the perils of live performance (will Wotan trip on his spear?) available at a your local shopping mall for about one-fifth of what New Yorkers are shelling out. Oh, sure, it’s Wagner, which means a lot of shrill women in breastplates and men stomping around in horned helmets. But the Ring cycle is like the start of a giant sung-through version of The Lord of the Rings. (There’s even a malicious, ring-obsessed dwarf named Alberich, who’s sort of like Gollum.) And hey, some of the Met’s live broadcasts later this fall are five hours long. Das Rheingold only lasts three. Oct. 9 | Regal NorthTown Mall 12 theaters, $20, from 10 am-1 pm – MICHAEL BOWEN

Classical

Fall Fantasy Concert

Goosebumps will abound as the Coeur d’Alene Symphony performs Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture" and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major. Tchaikovsky’s piece is a musical narrative, guiding the listener through the peaks and valleys of Shakespeare’s famous ill-fated lovers — most notoriously with its instantly recognizable love theme, illustrating the couple’s first meeting on the balcony. In keeping with this program’s literary influence, the orchestra delves into Mahler’s first symphony, also known as “The Titan,” which was loosely influenced by a novel of the same name by German Romantic-era writer Jean Paul. Mahler’s revolutionary inclusion of folk melodies as well as his unique arrangement style — even incorporating a rare double bass soloist — lures listeners to the edges of their seats. Oct. 9 | Lake City Community Church, $8-$20, 7:30 pm. — TIFFANY HARMS

Theater

The 39 Steps

Alfred Hitchcock, meet Basil Fawlty. The 39 Steps (the movie), set in 1930s London, took an unassuming chap — but rather proud of his dashing good looks and pencil mustache, don’t you know — and entangled him in a convoluted Nazi spy caper that had him clinging to speeding locomotives and clambering through the Scottish Highlands. The 39 Steps (the stage play, which premiered 70 years later), shoves our debonair hero at one point into a spoof scene suitable for John Cleese. It’s late in the goose chase, you see, with Richard Hannay and his reluctant love-interest, Margaret, hoping to avoid the police inspectors by taking refuge in a remote bed and breakfast. The proprietors, a fussy Scottish couple, are played by two actors (“the clowns”) who keep ducking below the check-in counter and switching roles: First they’re the hosts, then they’re the coppers, then they’re back to speaking in brogues again. The phone keeps ringing when it shouldn’t.

With the clowns often playing several roles in the space of a few seconds, with props flying out of a trunk and the audience often asked to play let’s-pretend, The 39 Steps is the kind of farce that works best onstage and in front of a live audience. It’s not a desecration of Hitchcock; it’s a recognition of the comic potential in this skin-of-our-teeth escapade. Quick thinking helps Hannay put things right, my dear fellow: Nazis killed, girl kissed, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world. Cheerio. Oct. 14-30 | Interplayers, $21 (top), Wed-Sat 7:30 pm, Sat-Sun 2 pm — MICHAEL BOWEN

Books

Ann Rule

True crime author Ann Rule is back with her newest book, In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds. It chronicles the mysterious and still-unsolved case of Reynolds, who allegedly committed suicide the morning she was to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her family for the holidays. Her mother, along with a courageous detective, refutes the suicide verdict — she fights for answers and justice against spotty evidence, a poorly handled investigation and a confused coroner who flip-flops between “suicide” and “undetermined.” Join Rule in person as she navigates the complexities of Ronda’s case, including the Reynolds’ turbulent relationship with her husband and accusations of a police cover-up, in hopes of finding a road through what many have long since determined to be a dead end. Oct. 16 | Auntie’s Bookstore, free, 2 pm — TIFFANY HARMS

Film

Flicker Spokane Film Festival

“Before all the current digital media took over, films were shot on an almost magically luminous piece of celluloid that feels much more warm and organic, with all its flaws, than digital,” says Flicker organizer and participant Gary McLeod.

With the caveat that all films must originate on film (8mm, Super 8mm, 16mm, Super 16mm), Flicker shows experimental and independent shorts from around the world.

This year, Flicker will feature films from Germany, France, Spain, Finland and the U.S., including a handful of local films. Also exciting is the presence of four female filmmakers, an usually high number for local short-film fests.

Koreshakti Tribal Fusion Halloween Show

If you haven’t seen Koreshakti Tribal Fusion, you’re in for a treat. Though the dancers of the group all look like dancers — every inch of them covered in bangles and lush fabrics — they’re more like artists. Collectively, they are an encyclopedia of dance know-how: belly dance, jazz, Irish step, tap dancing (and I swear one of them knows how to moonwalk). They shake all of that together as Koreshakti, creating dance performances like you’ve never seen before. The group revives its Where the Wild Things Are show — “a forest ode to wonder and magic” — for the first half of this year’s Halloween performances. Then they’ll give you Nocturnus III: the group’s homage to all things bloody, deadly and scary. And they’ll do it, of course, in the most beautiful possible way. Oct. 21-22 | Empyrean, $10, 8 pm, all-ages — LEAH SOTTILE

Film

Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival

Sundance doesn’t go on tour. Neither does Cannes. But Wild & Scenic, screening environmentally conscious films since 2002, is different breed of film festival. After kicking off the year with a two-day festival in Nevada City, Calif., Wild & Scenic hits the road.

Last Comic Standing Tour

What else is NBC supposed to do with all the runners-up who didn’t win the seventh-season finale of Last Comic Standing? Send them on tour, of course — just like American Idol does with its afterthoughts. Only this is less boring. The show features winner Felipe Esparza, plus finalists Mike Destefano, Myq Kaplan, Roy Wood Jr. and Tommy Johnagin. Considered something of an upset by those who found Johnagin more entertaining, Esparza is a husky, shaggy-haired Latino from East Los Angeles, of which he jokes, “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a comedian, but you know, growing up where I grew up, dreams take a break. I lived in a gated community. The windows were gated, the backdoors were gated …” The only downside? Show host Craig Robinson (Darryl from The Office), isn’t coming along. Boo. Oct. 24 | The Bing, $35-$75, 7:30 pm — BLAIR TELLERS

Classical

Vladimir Feltsman's Brahms 2

The big-name soloist in this year’s Spokane Symphony Orchestra season is Vladimir Feltsman. At dual concerts in late October, he’ll perform Johannes Brahms’ second piano concerto — the one composed in middle age, decades after the first, with the Allegro appassionato inserted among the traditional three movements.

But Feltsman isn’t as staid as all that might sound. In fact, a reviewer in San Diego last month had this to say: “It’s tempting to call Vladimir Feltsman a madman. It’s crazy what he can do at the piano. He has an effortless yet Herculean technique.” If you’re going to play with Feltsman, James Chute went on to say, “you’d better be prepared to hold your own. He’s not going to be your demure accompanist; he’s going to be your partner and at times, your provocateur.”

Now 58, Feltsman made his debut with the Moscow Philharmonic 46 years ago. Since then, he has played with every major American orchestra and most of the ones in Europe.

Feltsman has led a life split in half. Thirty years ago, he announced his intention to emigrate; the Soviet government responded by restricting him from public performances for most of the ’80s. Eventually, he was welcomed at the White House and became an American citizen.

Music Director Eckart Preu has bracketed Feltsman’s Brahms with two other works, each of which has its own story. Antonin Dvorak composed his Fifth Symphony at 34, just as he had run out of money and gotten his girlfriend pregnant; Bohuslav Martinu wrote his concerto for dual string sections even as the Nazis were invading his Czech homeland.

Trailer Park Boys

F-bombs, dope smoking, beer guts, creepy puppets and miscreant humor. It’s Canada’s homegrown cult phenomenon Trailer Park Boys, which started as a mockumentary TV series with a Cops-esque camera crew documenting the misadventures of doobie-loving ex-convict trailer park residents in Nova Scotia. Their humble daily aspirations include smoking more weed than Dave Chappelle, getting rich quick and staying out of jail. The shows’ main characters, Ricky (loves marijuana, alcohol and chicken fingers), Julian (seasoned criminal with hidden morals) and Bubbles (think Milton from Office Space) have disembarked on a rowdy live tour titled Ricky, Julian and Bubbles Community Service Variety Show, which is exactly what it sounds like. The premise is the three oddballs are in “your town” to fulfill court-ordered community service mandates by performing a puppet show that demonstrates the dangers of alcohol and drugs. Guess how that plays out. Oct. 25 | The Bing, $28-$35, 7:30 pm, all-ages — BLAIR TELLERS

Books

Jimmy Santiago Baca

Jimmy Baca is 58 now, an American Book Award winner and much-honored “poet of the people.” Thirty years ago, however, he’d just finished doing six years for drug possession. As a toddler in New Mexico, he’d been orphaned, then lived on the streets, then got himself in trouble. When he entered prison, he was illiterate.

He wasn’t when he got out. His 2007 poem “This Day” hints at his self-transformation: Remembering an afternoon when he was watching some robins, he writes, “They’ve never smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, consumed drugs/ as I have.” Later, he imagines that the birds “scold me not to be self-pitying,/ to open my life/ and make this day a bough on a tree/ leaning over infinity....”

Self-change isn’t Baca’s only focus: One of his poetry collections is called Immigrants in Our Own Land. It’s not a big seller in Arizona. Oct. 26 | Gonzaga’s Cataldo Hall, free, 7:30 pm — MICHAEL BOWEN

Visual Arts

Kota Ezawa, "Upstairs Downstairs"

To describe him as a cartoonist would be a gross oversimplification, yet Kota Ezawa possesses both the wry sense of humor necessary for potent social and political satire and the genius of scarcity.

His subject matter ranges from pop culture — the O.J. Simpson trial, a raucous pro basketball game — to historical images like “Earth from Moon” to banal scenes like a Technicolor suburban ranch-style home. Some of it silly, some of it serious, all rendered in a flattened style reminiscent of South Park in paper cutouts, digital animation stills and even ink drawings. If you missed him in the Visiting Artist Lecture Series a few years back, mark your calendar for the Oct. 27 opening reception and an opportunity to visit with this internationally known German-Japanese artist. Oct. 27 - Dec. 4 | University of Idaho, free, Tues-Sat 10 am-8 pm, Sun 10 am-4 pm — CARRIE SCOZZARO

Theater

West Side Story

A concert version of a dance-heavy show? Best. Musical. Ever — yet without all those Jerome Robbins moves? But wait, there’s a payoff: Concertgoers will get to listen, really listen, to perhaps the greatest five-song sequence in all of American musical theater: “I’ve just met a girl named Maria ... Tonight, tonight/ the world is wild and bright ... Skyscrapers bloom in Amer-i-ca/ Cadillacs zoom in Amer-i-ca ... Got a rocket in your pocket?/ Keep cooly-cool, boy! ... Make of our hands one hand,/ Make of our hearts one heart.”

Yvonne A.K. Johnson’s production will feature more than 30 singers, led by the powerful voices of Michael J. Muzatko and Andrea Dawson in the ‘50s-style Romeo and Juliet roles of Tony and Maria. Their ending’s tragic, but the message remains hopeful: Somehow, somewhere, we’ll find a new way of living. Oct. 29-30 | Spokane Civic Theatre, $30, 7:30 pm — MICHAEL BOWEN

Music

Bugs Bunny at the Symphony

Finally, the adults have caught on. There’ll be no more kicking and screaming as you drag your kids away from the TV, because the Spokane Symphony is presenting "Bugs Bunny at the Symphony." Your kids will get their Saturday morning cartoon fix as the symphony provides live accompaniment to on-screen Looney Tunes favorites like “The Rabbit of Seville” and “What’s Opera, Doc?” Though the symphony has performed a similar program in the past, this year is different, incorporating a larger cast of characters including Sylvester, Tweety, Tom and Jerry. To branch out even further, the performance will also host a Hanna-Barbera cartoon montage featuring The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and many more. At long last, there’s a way to make everyone happy. Well, except Disney fans. Oct. 30-31 | INB Center, $14-$46, Sat 8 pm, Sun 2 pm — TIFFANY HARMS

Music

Best Coast

I’d be lying if I said Best Coast hasn’t sucked me in — just a little — to her light, girly beach pop. It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for the California-bred group (Best Coast is the moniker of singer/guitarist Bethany Cosentino, but she’s got a band behind her, too). In fact, it’s kind of hard to believe Best Coast’s debut record, Crazy for You, only came out in late July. Because in the weeks since, Cosentino and company have climbed the charts — selling more than 10,000 copies and entering the Top 40 on the Billboard charts. And SPIN has been falling all over her for months.

But — before you freak — this isn’t some That Thing You Do! story where a single on the radio turns into superstardom. No, no, no. Cosentino was a child actress. She’s the daughter of the drummer in War (you know, “All … my .. friends … know the low rider”). One of her old bands opened for Sonic Youth. I’m sure a little nepotism didn’t hurt when she decided to become Best Coast, but neither did her years of playing around the Big Apple.

You could call Best Coast fuzzy lo-fi pop rock (everyone else is). But it’s not the fuzziest. Not the most lo-fi. And certainly not the poppiest of rock out there. And that right there is the reason for Cosentino’s fame. She’s riding her cruiser bike right down the middle, creating a sound that isn’t sunny California beaches, but lava lamp-lit, stoner-filled, California rec rooms. Now, if Cosentino springs back from Crazy for You with more of the same, we might bail. But if she goes Nico on us — which I could see — we’ll be begging to get backstage. Oct. 31 | Stage54, $12-$15, 7 pm, all-ages — LEAH SOTTILE

Film

SpIFF Professor Film Series

On Wednesday nights when you’re not at the MAC, go to the Magic
Lantern for SpIFF’s Professor Series. Started last fall, the Professor
Series is designed “to give people who wanted to do more than go to the
movies something to do,” according to SpIFF Director Dr. Pete Porter.

Most of the films on tap will be classics of one form or another. The first up, Director Alfonso Cuaron’s catalytic Children of Men — discussion by Gonzaga’s Brian Clayton — is a classic of contemporary sci-fi action. Not to be missed on the big screen.

Local professors choose a film to screen — something not often
shown or something they think audience members should consider in a
different way — and then host a Q-and-A session following the movie.
Porter describes most of the discussions as “pretty darn good.” Sept. 29 - Dec. 1 | Magic Lantern Theatre, $10, $5 for students; 7 pm — CAREY JACKSON

Theater

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story

Buddy presents the Crickets as they get their start in Lubbock,
defy the country-Western music establishment in Nashville and then
become one of the first white acts ever to play Harlem’s Apollo Theater.
Later on in New York, and on just their first date, Buddy asks Maria
Elena to marry him; soon after, he’s touring with Richie Valens and the
Big Bopper.

Buddy is a jukebox musical, so we get to dig songs like Sam Cooke’s
“You Send Me,” Paul Anka’s “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” and Chuck
Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” along with the central trio’s hits. (The day
they flew into an Iowa blizzard was the Day the Music Died. So have some
respect, man, and wear your black horn-rims.) Sept. 24 - Oct. 24 | Spokane Civic Theatre, $28 (top), Thurs-Sat 7:30 pm, Sun 2 pm — MICHAEL BOWEN

Visual Art

Katherine Nelson and Victoria Brace

In the Inland Northwest’s gallery game, the Art Spirit is the most
expert of players. It’s a place where artists who push the boundaries
are showcased and lauded. These are artists who take risks, and who make
art that isn’t always easy. Art Spirit’s current show, featuring recent
works of Katherine Nelson and Victoria Brace, reinforces that
dedication. Nelson and Brace create stunning depictions of life with
simple oils and charcoal. Brace flirts with the afternoon: the way the
sun enters a room through windowpanes, or the way shadows make up the
facade of an aging building. Alongside her, Nelson is downright Lynchian
— casting hard-lined shadows with charcoal, laying a foreboding
Eraserhead topcoat over both wheat fields and urban alleyways. Sept. 10 - Oct. 2 | The Art Spirit Gallery, free, open 11 am – 6 pm. — LEAH SOTTILE

Theater

Evita

This being Lake City’s first show under new executive artistic
director George Green, perhaps it’s appropriate that Evita is about a
dictator.

Or maybe Green will turn out to be a revolutionary, like Che
Guevara in the show. At Coeur d’Alene’s community theater, Green has
already achieved regime change in matters both cosmetic (new paint, new
website) and substantial (more aggressive marketing, luring both
creatives and actors across the state line). Certainly director Abbey
Crawford and her three principals — Alyssa Day as Eva Peron, Todd Kehne
as Che, Kent Kimball as Juan Peron — can deliver the goods in a musical
about a grasping, glamorous woman who wavered between
self-aggrandizement and generosity toward Argentina’s poor.